Seriously, I do. More pictures to come soon.

Tyler & I just got back from visiting his family in Strasburg, Colorado. Okay, well, actually I was meeting them for the first time. It must be quite a shock for them to meet someone that is going to be in their lives forever so suddenly, but I think they handled it quite well! I had such a wonderful time, driving through the mountains with Tyler’s parents, meeting his brother & sister-in-law and grandparents.

The best part by far was getting to see this man that I believe God prepared for me before I was born in a new way. All of a sudden Tyler became more “3 dimensional” to me. I know him so well here, his life here with me, but I didn’t know the man that was before, I wasn’t there while he was growing up, I’ve never seen the places I’ve heard crazy stories about, and I’ve never seen the pictures of him as a cute little boy & young man (and he was CUTE). Tyler & I are always here in Omaha, where we’re a part of each other’s lives, and where we are molding our 2 lives into one. But this was the first time that I was somewhere with Tyler for no other reason except that we love each other. That was the only reason I was there in Colorado.

And I tell you what, I may be off, but that just does something beautiful to a woman’s soul, to be somewhere with the man she loves for no other reason but that one. It is a beautiful design, this love thing that God made. Sometimes when I’m learning something hard or something really beautiful about our relationship and what it means to love someone truly, I try to catch myself and wonder how this is reflecting God’s love for me. After all, marriage is God’s design to show us how intensely He desires us, and how deeply He loves us. Every intricacy of marriage should be able to reveal to us a smidgin of this, right? It seems that way. I’ve just been thinking about how my heart felt such a love and need for Tyler when I was with him in his town, with his family. How I felt so alive with the thought that this was the man who wanted to marry me forever, who wanted me to become his new family…and here he was bringing me before his family & parents to show them proudly who I was. What a small glimpse into how our hearts should be responding to our Savior, doing the same thing before His own Father.

Anyway, the funnest part of the weekend was hopping on the back of a 4 wheeler and having Tyler illegally whisk me all over Strasburg at dusk, holding on for dear life. I got to see all the ins and outs, all the places Tyler has almost died from motorcycle jumping accidents, the homes he grew up in, the place that builds miniature trains, the museum, the high school, the places he ran from the police, the wall he got thrown into by the tornado, the trails that he used to spend hours and hours on with his 4 wheeler, and a Strasburg high school baseball game. Just a typical day with Tyler Cooper.